Andrew
Kavchak: The Gouzenko Affair - The Start of the
Cold War
Subject:
Announcement
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2019 09:00:36
From: Andy K <andycentre@gmail.com>
To: Komunikaty Ottawskie <redakcja@komott.net>
Hello Mr. Piasta,
Attached is a poster from the "Friends of the Canadian
War Museum" announcing a presentation that they will
be hosting at the War Museum on March 21, 2019 at
1:30pm about the defection of Igor Gouzenko. I
will be making the presentation (and I am of Polish
origin - my grandfather was among the officers killed
in the Katyn forest massacre). Gouzenko's defection
from the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa in September 1945
was the first significant international incident of
the Cold War.
Maybe there are some members of the Polish community
who would be interested in attending the lecture.
Sincerely,
Andrew Kavchak
The Gouzenko
Affair - The Start of the Cold War
Three
days after the Japanese surrendered and formally ended
WWII, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk working in military
intelligence, walked out of the Soviet Embassy in
Ottawa. Gouzenko exposed a Soviet spy network that
had penetrated the Canadian government and the Manhattan
Project. The repercussions were significant, and
just as the world thought that peace was at hand, a new
"Cold War" came to dominate international
relations. This presentation will discuss this
first significant international incident of the Cold
War, the drama of Gouzenko's attempt to warn the West,
the reaction of the Canadian government and our closest
allies, the Royal Commission of Inquiry, the spy trials,
and the efforts to commemorate Gouzenko with two
historic plaques in Ottawa.
Andrew Kavchak
is a retired civll servant who holds a law degree
from Osgoode Hall Law School and an M.A. in
political science from Carleton University. He is an
amateur historian who spent over four years lobbying
for the recognition of the Gouzenko Affair as an
event of national historic significance which led to
the unveiling of federal and municipal plaques in
Ottawa in 2003 and 2004. He is the author of "Remembering
Gouzenko - The Struggle to Honour a Cold War Hero" (Mackenzie
Institute, 2004).
If you wish to attend, please telephone the Friends
Office at 819.776.8618 or email at fcwm-amcg@friends-amis.org
by
Thursday, 14 March 2019.
- Parking is
available at the Museum, charges apply.
*Donations
will be accepted at the door in cash or by
cheque. Receipts will be issued.
Komunikaty Ottawskie
5 March 2019
 Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko (Игорь Сергеевич Гузенко)
(born January 13, 1919, Dmitrov, Russia - died June 28,
1982, Mississauga, ON)
was a cipher clerk stationed at the Soviet Union’s Ottawa
embassy during the Second World War.
Canada and the Soviet Union became allies after Nazi
Germany invaded the USSR in June 1941. The governments in
Ottawa and Moscow agreed in June 1942 to open diplomatic
relations, and soon after the Soviets established their
first legation in Ottawa. From that base, they built a
network of espionage and intelligence-gathering agencies,
utilizing and expanding upon assets they already had in
the small Communist Party of Canada.
Before the war, there was little about Canada that was of
interest to the Soviets. But during the war, Canada played
an important role in the Allied war effort. Canadians in
sensitive positions were privy to diplomatic, scientific
and military secrets; including highly classified
information concerning research on radar, code-breaking
and the atomic bomb. Ottawa had become a strategic site
for the GRU, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the
Soviet General Staff.
One of the agents Moscow sent to Ottawa in the summer of
1943 was Lieutenant-Colonel Nikolai Zabotin, who had
orders to keep his espionage activities secret from Soviet
ambassador Georgi Zarubin. Gouzenko was trained as an
intelligence officer and assigned to GRU headquarters in
Moscow, where he worked as a cipher clerk. He’d been there
for about a year when he was ordered to accompany Zabotin
to Ottawa, where he would handle transmissions to and from
Moscow.
On the evening of 5 September 1945, he walked out of the
Soviet embassy for the last time, carrying 109 top-sescret
documents. That evening and the following day, Gouzenko
tried unsuccessfully to seek help at the office of the
Minister of Justice, the Ottawa Journal and the Ottawa
Magistrate’s Court. At the various offices, he either
couldn’t make himself understood or his story wasn’t taken
seriously. The USSR, after all, was still perceived to be
Canada’s ally.
Svetlana accompanied Gouzenko as he moved about the city
on 6 September. She had their toddler under one arm and in
her other hand a bag full of embassy documents. That
night, they hid in a neighbour’s apartment, while the NKVD
raided their unit across the hall.
The Gouzenkos’ quest for asylum hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Word of it was passed from the justice department to
Undersecretary of State for the Department of External
Affairs Norman Robertson. He informed Prime Minister
William Lyon Mackenzie King that Gouzenko claimed to have
documentation proving Soviet espionage activity in Canada
and the United States.
King initially was suspicious of the would-be defector’s
motives and didn’t want the Canadian government to take
any action that the Soviets might deem unfriendly.
However, William Stephenson, the Canadian head of British
Security Co-ordination (BSC), Peter Dywer, the MI6
representative in Washington, and MI6 director Sir Stewart
Menzies had also been informed of the situation. One of
those men — likely Dwyer, according to Soviet and Cold War
historian Amy Knight — advised King to get Gouzenko and
his documents at once.
Early on 7 September, RCMP officers took Gouzenko and his
family into protective custody.
Gouzenko and his family were given another identity by the
Canadian government out of fear of Soviet reprisals.
Gouzenko, as assigned by the Canadian g overnment, lived the rest of
his life under the assumed name of George Brown. Little is
known about his life afterwards, but it is understood that
he and his wife settled down to a middle-class existence
in the Toronto suburb of Clarkson. They raised eight
children together. He was, however, involved in a
defamation case against Maclean's for a libellous article
written about him. The case was eventually heard by the
Supreme Court of Canada.
Gouzenko remained in the public eye, writing two books,
This Was My Choice, a non-fiction account of his
defection, and the novel The Fall of a Titan, which won a
Governor General's Award in 1954. Gouzenko also appeared
on television to promote his books and air grievances with
the RCMP, always with a hood over his head.
Gouzenko’s defection and the contents of his documents
caused enormous concern for the security of Canada and its
American and British allies. Leaders at the Soviet embassy
were also anxious. Zarubin demanded that the Canadians
hand Gouzenko over to him as a thief who had stolen money.
Canadian authorities claimed not to know where he was. For
their protection, the Gouzenko family was moved to Camp X,
the top-secret spy training school near Whitby, Ontario,
where representatives of the RCMP, FBI, BSC, MI5 and MI6
continued their questioning.
News of the discovery of the Soviet spy operation was
withheld from the public until 3 February 1946, when
American journalist Drew Pearson broke the story. The next
day, King informed his Cabinet of the Gouzenko Affair for
the first time. He also appointed two justices of the
Supreme Court of Canada to head a Royal Commission on the
matter.
Gouzenko at his car, year 1948
The investigation led to the arrests of 39 suspects, of
whom 18 were convicted. Among them were MP Fred Rose and
Sam Carr of the Labor-Progressive Party (see Communist
Party of Canada), and Canadian Army captain Gordon Lunan.
In the United Kingdom, nuclear physicists Alan Nunn May
and Klaus Fuchs were convicted and sent to prison.
The Gouzenko Affair sparked investigations in the United
States that eventually led to the 1953 executions of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for treason.
The Canadian government expelled Soviet embassy staff
members who were implicated in the affair. Zabotin was
recalled to the USSR and sent to a labour camp in Siberia.
In a period of supposedly friendly relations with Russia,
Gouzenko claimed to have proof that a ring of Canadians -
including Member of Parliament - was spying for the
Soviets. So devastating was this revelation that
historians have credited Gouzenko's defection with being
the first significant international incident of the Cold
War.. From that moment on, Igor Gouzenko became a man of
mystery, a hooded figure whose identity and whereabouts
were a closely guarded secret...
Gouzenko exposed the names of the Canadian Communist
agents. One of them, Fred Rose, was actually a Member of
Parliament.
Igor Gouzenko tombstone on Spring Creek Cemetery in
Mississauga, ON
Mr. Gouzenko unmasked Soviet spy rings in Canada, the
United States and Britain, Moscow's wartime allies, and he
disclosed Stalin's efforts to steal the secrets of the
atomic bomb. The defection was the very first significant
international event of the Cold War - coming just three
days after the Japanese surrender ending the Second World
War.
Igor Gouzenko is credited with starting the so-called
"Cold War" with his exposure of Communist agents in
Canada, United States and Britain in 1945. Prior to then
the so-called "free world" was on good terms with the
Communists, which seems strange, but it's true.
Igor Gouzenko's defection was a turning point in the
Cold War, by revealing the Soviet Union to be a terribly
dangerous enemy, and his contribution to Canada and other
Western nations cannot be overstated. The Soviet Union
relied on espionage to get the technology to build nuclear
weapons, and it relied on the propaganda activities of
sympathizers in Western nations to weaken the resolve of
their governments to counter Soviet aggression.
One may find more information
on Gouzenko and Mr. Andrew Kavchak at The "Andrew
Kavchak Honours Igor Gouzenko" website https://www.nemacolin.net/igor/
Other sources of info: http://circ.jmellon.com/history/gouzenko/
(Canadian Intelligence Resource Centre Archives) and
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Gouzenko
You may watch two videos to learn more about Gouzenko and
the commemoration of the Gouzenko Affair:
One may also visit Mr. Kavchak's video channel on Yutube,
where there are two videos - one on Mr. Kavchak's
grandfather, who was killed in the Katyn forest massacre,
the other one is an overview of the Katyn Massacre 1940:
Czeslaw Piasta
|
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Popielcowa - Post ścisły, środa, 6 marca 
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życie
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Wychowana w duchu patriotycznym, w głębokiej wierze
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wyborem wierności wpojonym wartościom a pragnieniem
życia. Losy
najbliższych, swój własny los, swój strach przed
śmiercią
konfrontuje z boską sprawiedliwością i romantycznym
mitem pięknej,
chwalebnej romantycznym oddawaniem życia za
ojczyznę.
946 roku
aresztowana rankiem przez funkcjonariuszy UB w
mieszkaniu przy ul. Wróblewskiego 7 we Wrzeszczu, w
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wcześniej przez bezpiekę Regina Żylińska-Mordas,
łączniczka
Szendzielarza, która poszła na współpracę z UB.
Została
umieszczona w pawilonie V więzienia w Gdańsku jako
więzień
specjalny. Po ciężkim śledztwie 3 VIII 1946 roku
skazana na śmierć
przez Wojskowy Sąd Rejonowy w Gdańsku. Wyrok był
komunistyczną
zbrodnią sądową. "Inka" nie uległa namowom obrońcy z
urzędu i nie podpisała się pod pismem do Bieruta,
"prezydenta"
z sowieckiego nadania, o ułaskawienie. Podpisał je
obrońca Inki
Jan Chmielowski. Bierut nie skorzystał z prawa
łaski. W przesłanym
grypsie z więzienia "Inka" napisała: "Powiedzcie
mojej babci, że zachowałam się jak trzeba".
Wybory
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